Correction: This article was updated to reflect a missing word in the quote from Nathan Seidle.

TED events and talks are designed to trigger the spread of ideas, spur conversations and challenge limitations.

On Saturday evening at Macky Auditorium in Boulder, 13 individuals -- including a musician, a CEO, a professor and a fire chief -- are expected to share their thoughts and experiences at the third-annual TEDxBoulder, the independently coordinated version of the annual TED conferences.

The theme for this year's TEDxBoulder is "Edges and Experiences" -- how people have pushed their boundaries.

About 2,000 people are expected to attend the event, which organizers claim is one of the largest ticketed TEDx events in the world.

"We have a very active, engaged, intellectual community here," said George Morris, co-founder of Boulder startup imulus and co-organizer of TEDxBoulder. "... I think it says something about this community and how many people come out for this."

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Among the baker's dozen speaking at the event are Alena Grabowski, a University of Colorado researcher involved in several studies analyzing the performance of amputee athletes; musician Rob Drabkin; Don Wittemore, assistant chief of the Rocky Mountain Fire department; and Nathan Seidle, chief executive officer of Boulder's SparkFun Electronics.

The CEO of the local purveyor of electronics tinkering tools, said his talk will revolve around the idea of "IP Obesity."

"When a company relies too much on their intellectual property, they become intellectually unfit," Seidle wrote in an email to the Camera.

The more companies spend on filing for and enforcing patents, the fewer resources they have to innovate and outmatch their competitors, he said.

"I hope people seeing my presentation will leave with the knowledge that patents are not a magical salve," Seidle said. "Instead, there is a different path (open source hardware) that can actually be beneficial to their business."

TEDxBoulder is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. and run until about 9:30 p.m.

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